The discovery of the remarkable antibiotic properties of penicillin stimulated great interest in this field which has resulted in the finding of many other valuable antibiotic substances such as: other penicillins, cephalosporins, streptomycin, bacitracin, tetracyclines, chloramphenicol, erythromycins and the like. In general the antibacterial activity of each of these antibiotics does not include certain clinically important pathogenic bacteria. For example, some are principally active against only gram-positive types of bacteria. Acquired resistance over the course of widespread use of existing antibiotics in the treatment of bacterial infection has caused a serious resistance problem to arise.
Accordingly, the deficiencies of the known antibiotics have stimulated further research to find other antibiotics which will be active against a wider range of pathogens as well as resistant strains of particular microorganisms.
This further research has lead to the discovery of the thienamycin family of antibiotics of which the compounds of the present invention are members. Other members of the thienamycin family of antibiotics are described in the applications Jean S. Kahan, Frederick M. Kahan, Edward O. Stapley, Robert T. Goegelman and Sebastian Hernandez, U.S. Ser. No. 632,938, filed Nov. 18, 1975 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,006,060 which is a divisional application of the co-pending application Jean S. Kahan, Frederick M. Kahan, Edward O. Stapley, Robert T. Goegelman and Sebastian Hernandez, U.S. Ser. No. 526,992, filed Nov. 25, 1974 now U.S. Pat. No. 3,950,357; Robert T. Goegelman and Frederick M. Kahan, U.S. Ser. No. 613,822, filed Sept. 18, 1975 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,000,161 which is a continuation-in-part of the co-pending application Robert T. Goegelman and Frederick M. Kahan, U.S. Ser. No. 534,382, filed Dec. 19, 1974, now abandoned; Patrick J. Cassidy, Robert T. Goegelman, Edward O. Stapley and Sebastian Hernandez, U.S. Ser. No. 634,300, filed Nov. 21, 1975 now abandoned; Jean S. Kahan, Frederick M. Kahan, Robert T. Goegelman, Edward O. Stapley and Sebastian Hernandez, U.S. Ser. No. 634,301, filed Nov. 21, 1975 now abandoned; and Jean S. Kahan and Frederick M. Kahan, U.S. Ser. No. 634,560, filed Nov. 24, 1975 now abandoned.